NCAA Basketball: Ranking the last 25 national title winning head coaches

When comparing the most recent championship coaches, it’s hard not to see legends of the college basketball game leading their programs to titles. Many of these men made many deep NCAA Tournament runs and built programs that sustained success for decades. With all due respect, Kevin Ollie does not fit well with the rest of this list.

Ollie played for Jim Calhoun at UConn in the early 1990s before embarking on a long professional career. As an NBA point guard, he was typically revered by his teammates. There wasn’t much of a surprise after his retirement in 2010 that he joined Calhoun’s staff at UConn.

He was on staff when the Huskies blitzed through March in 2011, winning the Big East as a No. 9 seed and cutting down the nets with a national championship. However, in 2012, he got his chance to run the show as Calhoun stepped aside.

The 2014 Huskies made the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed, though once again marched their way into history. Shabazz Napier led UConn to another national championship. Ollie had a title in just his second season in Storrs, but the success wouldn’t last.

The Huskies would win the AAC Tournament in 2016, but by 2018 Ollie was out. He was fired as the result of an investigation into NCAA violations, though he was just 30-35 in his final two years.

Two years have passed and Ollie has yet to bounce back into the coaching scene. While it’s true that he spent those two years on Calhoun’s staff, that 2014 title team was built mostly by Calhoun’s efforts.

Ollie inherited a fantastic team and couldn’t build a contending program in the following years. There’s no undermining the accomplishments of that 2014 team’s impressive run, especially as a No. 7 seed, but Ollie’s coaching career went way downhill right afterward.